SUPERVISOR RACE WARMS UP BEFORE GAME TIME

North County’s race for supervisor is coming down to the short strokes. In roughly three weeks, ballots will start arriving in mailboxes. The primary election will be half-baked before June 5.

Monday’s candidate forum, sponsored by the Escondido Republican Club, raised a few obvious questions, the answers to which may be helpful to voters who couldn’t recognize the five District 3 candidates in a police lineup.

Is Steve Danon TOO GOOD a candidate?

It will remain a matter of speculation if Danon’s early-bird campaign against Supervisor Pam Slater-Price persuaded her to retire or if, after 20 years, she was ready to call it quits anyway, as she has said. The unarguable fact is that Danon stole a long march on the field, allowing him to hone his reformist agenda while racking up an impressive raft of endorsements on the right side of the political spectrum, including the Republican Party.

No wonder. For all of his adult life, Danon has lived and breathed politics. He’s incredibly disciplined, driving a simple, coherent message. He’s polished, unflappable, even self-deprecating at times.

And yet ...

After the forum, I was talking to a husband and wife, longtime Escondido residents. I asked them who they’d likely vote for. Carl Hilliard, they said. They like the business experience of the Del Mar mayor. They viewed Danon as too smooth, too nakedly ambitious. The fact that Hilliard’s of a certain age did not bother them, perhaps because they, too, are of a certain age.

Will Hilliard’s negative attack against Danon draw blood?

If he’s going to finish in the money — that is, in the top two, thus qualifying for the November runoff — Hilliard’s going to have to do two things:

Claim a significant percentage of right-leaning voters and finish ahead of Dave Roberts, the Solana Beach deputy mayor — and lone Democrat in the race — whom Slater-Price anointed as her chosen successor.

Hoping for a game change, Hilliard is attacking Danon’s ethics, alleging that he’s campaigned while on the clock as Congressman Brian Bilbray’s chief of staff. Not surprisingly, Roberts is happy to echo the charge. The enemy of my enemy is my friend ... until we turn upon each other.

My take: Danon knew his job/campaign time management would be on full display at some point. He may have fudged when convenient, but I doubt he went rogue. He has a paper trail to prove his virtue.

Will two fringe candidates play a role in the outcome?

Monday’s forum was enlivened by two Republicans — Bryan Ziegler, a county attorney and reserve deputy, and Stephen Pate, a Hollywood transportation coordinator and proud Teamster.

Wearing a jean jacket, firefighter cap and exuding hostility toward politics (and politicians) as usual, Pate treated his appearance as public art, holding up a dress suit as if he’d just picked it up from the dry cleaners. His cheeky slogans brought a smile: “A Snowball’s Chance” and “Not the Golfer.” Pate distributed cupcakes, a reference to a jest he made to a columnist about winning the endorsement of schoolchildren with the help of cupcakes.